


Renewal

by Eggling



Series: daemon au [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 12:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: The Doctor and his daemon regenerate.





	Renewal

_Stop._

The world swirled around him. He watched it through half-closed eyes, dizzied by the sight of it spinning. For a moment, it felt as if it was his surroundings which had been renewed, not him – and they had come back all wrong.

_Stop._

He fumbled, struggling to push himself up with limbs which were no longer his own. Unthinkingly, he reached for help, expecting to feel a strong, steady mass of fur or scales beneath his fingers, but he was met only with empty air.

_Concentrate on one thing._

Siannu was not there. When he reached out with his mind, their thoughts were missing, ripped away to leave only a gaping wound in their place. The shock of pain and loss almost threw him into another dizzy spell, and it was all he could do to maintain his grasp on reality.

_One thing…_

He felt as if his very consciousness was leaking out through the gap left by Siannu, and he pressed his hands over his ears, almost struggling to hold himself inside his new body. When at last he managed to sit up, he saw two shapes standing over him. Even as he stared at them, hoping to see Siannu, the pounding in his head faded, and they resolved themselves into humanoid form. _Susan? No. Polly, Ben._

“It’s over,” he murmured, laughing softly to himself. “It’s over.”

Filled with a sudden burst of energy, he scrambled to the console, circling it slowly as if it were a wild animal that could pounce at any moment. _Animal. Where is Siannu?_ The fabric of his cloak hung clumsily off his shortened form, spilling onto the floor, and he pawed at it clumsily, struggling to tear it away from himself.

“Doctor?” It was Polly’s voice – no, Ben’s. Why could he not remember?

Already distracted, he raised his hands, studying them briefly before reaching up to touch the unfamiliar contours of his face. Creeping forward, Polly bent to pick something up off the floor. She kept her eyes carefully on him until she rejoined Ben, watching him with the same caution with which he himself had regarded the TARDIS only moments before. Actaeon was coiled protectively around her shoulders, his white fur fluffed up in alarm. They thought he might be dangerous, he realised with a pang of concern. For all he knew, they were right.

Feeling his new face was not enough. He needed to see himself from the outside, as they saw him – see the form that Siannu had taken, but they had vanished. Looking at his new face would have to do for now. Still stiff-legged and awkward, he shuffled his way over to the TARDIS chest, but tripped before he could reach it, sprawling onto the floor. Again he reached out for Siannu to help him up, and again he was met only with empty air. _Surely they should have reformed by now_ , he thought, his mind and muscles jittery with the unease of being without his daemon. _Perhaps something has gone wrong. Perhaps they will never reform again._ The sense of Siannu’s absence squirmed uncomfortably inside his head, but Ben and Polly’s concerned stares were drilling icy holes in his back, and he pushed himself to his feet unaided.

“The muscles are still a bit tight,” he mumbled by way of explanation.

Ben’s next words were quiet, and he satisfied himself with the thought that his senses were returning to normal, their raw edges softening. “What are we going to do?”

“It is the Doctor. I know it is.” Polly’s certain words were belied by the nervousness in her voice. “I think.”

“It’s not only his face that’s changed. He doesn’t even act like him.”

He busied himself with rifling through the chest, carefully not looking around at Ben and Polly.

“Who else do we know whose daemon can change?” Actaeon put in. “It must be him.”

A long, tense silence stretched out across the room, broken only by the whisper of Kay ruffling her feathers. “We never saw Siannu change like that.”

Bending his head down to peer backwards, he at last caught sight of the spectacle that had put the rest of them on edge. A shimmer of golden mist hung in the centre of the room, close to where he had fallen. Shrouded within it was a flickering shape, growing and shrinking along with the mist – or perhaps it was the other way around, he realised. The mist was pulsating in time with the shifting of the form within. As the shape morphed from dragonfly to raccoon to cobblemouse, the mist hung around it like spray from a waterfall. No, he thought, like _dust_ – dust in sunbeams, and the shape within was Siannu, renewing themselves just as he had.

Even as he admired the sight, the mist faded away, dispersing back into the air, and Siannu’s shifting slowed, becoming more controlled. Their forms began to seem more cohesive, falling into patterns – now a cat, now a butterfly, now an owl. At last, the shifting stopped, and they flew to his shoulder in the shape of a crow, their every wingbeat followed by Ben and Polly’s eyes. Ignoring their curious stares, he stroked Siannu’s new feathers experimentally, taking in their unfamiliar form.

“Is this who I am now, hm?” he murmured. 

Shaking their feathers rather smugly, Siannu shifted into a magpie. “Only sometimes.”


End file.
